DISers Stalking DISers...our end of June adventures!!

[castawaymam]

last ones for today

will write about Animal Kingdom tomorrow.

 

[karibritt01]

Interesting day, Mandy. What is CCH? I know what you mean about your nephew driving you nuts... Tucker gets bored, and irritates his sister!

Maggie... great pics! We were supposed to be in Epcot that night, but opted to go home early after dinner... that's when the rain was so hard.

 

[mandy200587]

Interesting day, Mandy. What is CCH? I know what you mean about your nephew driving you nuts... Tucker gets bored, and irritates his sister!

Maggie... great pics! We were supposed to be in Epcot that night, but opted to go home early after dinner... that's when the rain was so hard.

CCH is Columbia Harbor House. I don't know if it's he was bored but he wants it his way and gets mad and that. We're use to waiting in lines. I honestly didn't even get to wait in character lines. It was go, go, go.

 

[CourtneyandRyan]

Great reporting Mandy!
Yes-- SUPER glad I wasn't on that Super Soaker of a ride Splash!!!!! Oh, my! That would have done me in for the day =)

CK- Love your pics! I got a sneak peak anyway b/c I clicked the link in your siggie ... Love those boys of yours - they are precious!

Castaway-- Great reporting! I've never been in Epcot that late to stay for Illumniations-- I hear it's great! Glad yall enjoyed it!

Kari- Go checkout my thread-- -you just played a guest starring role!

 

[jjohnson]

Hey I found you all & I have to say I am SO glad it's only up to 6 pages.

We arrived at BWI in great spirits. The plan was to check-in, grab a bite at BW bakery & head to MK. I had 2 rooms booked at BWI with a request for connecting (4 children) for the first 2 nights before our 5 nights at BWV. At checkin not only were the rooms not connecting, but they had DH & I in a studio on the villa side & the 4 children on the Inn side. Anyone who has been to BW knows this is insane. It's at least a few 100ft in between the rooms. CM tells me the resort is completely sold out and nothing else is available Umm...sorry but you'll have to do better than that. So off they go to get the manager from "the back" who comes up with 2 studios on the villa side but on different floors What's really annoying is he acts like it's a wonderful upgrade. I informed him very sweetly that if I wanted 2 studios I would have paid $164 a night at OKW or SSR with my AP but none of them connect and I now have less beds. (BWI has 2Q + day bed the studios are 1Q + a pullout sofa)

Time is slowly passing by..... and he finally comes up with 2 studios sidebyside not the greatest but better than what we had. DH & I split up If it was more than 2 nights it would have never worked.

The rooms were not ready so we headed to BW bakery only to find out the sandwiches are premade with mayo. We'll DS is allergic to eggs so we turn around to catch a bus to MK

As you can probably imagine, none of us are feeling the magic at this point...

 

[Crazy Kanga]

As you can probably imagine, none of us are feeling the magic at this point...

I hate that everything started out badly for you. Hopefully things get better. Sadly for us, we started out on a high note, but things start to go south later in the trip. Stay tuned...

 

[Crazy Kanga]

Day 2- Friday the 22nd. Got up and had a nice breakfast at the concierge lounge. Muffins, danish, cereal, fruit, yogurt etc. No I didn't eat all of that, but that's the kind of stuff we all had. Sorry didn't take pictures of the lounge. I meant to, but you know how it is on your first park day. We were to excited to get to MK. We decided to drive over since we were checking out of WL and moving over to the Swan, so we loaded the car, drove over to the MK parking lot which took all of 3 minutes(good call on driving over) and hopped the monorail to MK. As we are taking off I hear someone across the monorail car yell out my name. I am in shock that someone is actually calling my name. Low and behold, a girl I graduated high school with who also happens to have a child at my school, is calling my name and waving. So that was aSmall World moment.As we are waiting for the character train grand opening ceremony, I am scanning the crowd for Kari Britt, but never saw her.I did see someone I believed to be Lesley(akaTimandLesley) but I wasn't sure if it was her so I didn't speak to her. Turns out I am almost positive it was her because she said she was at MK that day, but Oh, well. Then as we enter the park at rope drop we head straight back to Fantasyland and are able to walk on almost evry ride in Fantasyland-5min. waits top, but we didn't do Dumbo or Snow White. Just can't deal with waiting for Dumbo it loads so slowly, and SW is just not anyones favorite. Then we went over to TT and did Barnstormer as a walk on and were allowed to ride a 2nd time without even getting off. We were amazed at our good fortune. Then we went over to Tomorrowland and rode Buzz, COP, TT and then Space. After that we split up for lunch because Nick wanted Pinocchios and Luke wanted Sonny Eclipse. So, I took nick to Pinocs and Chris took Luke to Cosmic Ray's then we met back up for Philharmagic and then did Jungle Cruise with a great guide Erica!

By this time it is nearing 2:00 so we head out to go check in at the Swan. Again we score a free upgrade. I booked standard, but due to our Starwood Preferred Guest status recieved a free ugrade to a balcony resort view! Yay! It was very nice.

After a nap we walk over to Epcot which took about 10 minutes. It was still pretty hot at 5:30 so we went indoors to ride Maelstrom which actuall had a 10 minute wait! We have always been able to walk right on so we were a little shocked. Crowds were much bigger than we expected after our great morning at MK. Proof positive that getting to parks early is the key to getting things done.
Here are the boys and Fauna with the troll.

Oh, well then we went over to the Gran Fiesta Tour at Mexico, but first we grabbed a yummy Fiesta Margaritta to enjoy on the ride! The ride was cute, but I still missed all the cheesy 70's footage of Mexico from the old ride though. I don't accept change well, but the margaritta helped!
Then we went to TT and then decided to head back to the room. We were going to stay for Illuminations but we were just too tired. We could see some of it from the Boardwalk on the way home, but we couldn't hear the music. Oh well, we'll see it another night later in the trip so it's all good and we go up to crash in our Heavenly Beds!

 

[castawaymam]

Joyce, that stinks that they messed up the rooms, hope that your trip got better.

Laura, sounds like you had a fun filled day at MK. I had never been on the Gran Feista before so I don't know about the old vesion, but I enjoyed the new one even with the roudy bunch behind us.

 

[castawaymam]

We start our day at 6:30 in order to get to AK for the early entry. We get there at 8:01 and in the gate by 10 after. We caught Tought to be a Bug! about a 3 min wait. It wasn't even full when the show started. The show itself was better than it was the last time we had seen it, back in 02. We had a family in seating in front of us as the show started and not 5 mins in the show the mom was taking two of her three little ones out. The poor things were scared. The older one enjoyed it with his grandmother. After the bugs decided to go and check out the line for EE. The line was about an hour or more long. So Kevin went and got fastpasses for us. Well, let me rephase that for the guys, but he did get all four of us one. He didn't even ask if Haley and I wanted to ride, just assumed we would. So after getting the passes we went to see about the Safrai. We had a 40 min wait and we had time to kill so we hopped in the line. We really enjoy it this time around. The last time we rode it in the afternoon and didn't see much of the animals. We saw all of them this time. Here are a few.

the front desk

one of the baby giraffes

the male lion

male giraffe

gazelle

 

[castawaymam]

When the safrai was over we used the restrooms near Tamu Tamu refreshments. As Ryan and I was waiting on Kevin and Haley we watched this group

They were very good and fun to watch. We also saw these two characters on our way back to Asia to ride EE.

Baloo from Jungle Book

DeVine
There was a huge line for Baloo so we passed up on him and stop to watch Devine. When we got to EE Kevin and Ryan went and got in the fastpass line to ride it, while Haley and I waited. Well I took some pictures of the ride and other interesting items as I waited. Haley just sat on a rock.
Here are a few of the pictures that I took.

after they got back from the ride we went to get fastpasses for the Rvier Rapids and then walked right in for the Flights of Wonder Show. This was Amazing and very funny. Here are four of the birds that we saw.

tucan

cockatel

hawk

bald eagle
After the show the we went back EE so the guys could ride it again using the two fastpasses that Haley and I didn't use. I took some more pictures but of inside of the store that the ride comes out at. Here is the one that the ride takes of my guys.

Then we went to get fastpasses for Dinosaur, and came back to Asia to ride the Kali River Rapids. here are some from that

my monsters, brats, children
Kevin and I were the only ones on the ride who got soaked. Me moreso then Kevin , the others , my brats and the other four who were on the ride didn't get very wet. So when we got off the ride I pulled out my extra shirt and put in on over my tank top. Next we walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek.
Here we saw bats, Tigers, tapirs and a komodo dragon. Here are some pics of them.

He looks so bored.

a tapir with two peacocks.
After viewing the animals the kids were starting to get um how to put this nicely..... big whining brats. So we walked to Dinosaur and rode it and here is the ride picture from it.

After the ride we went back to the resort and had lunch and the kids napped and Kevin and I decided were we were going to eat for the night because I had left it open. We got resies for Alfedo's in Italy in Epcot. More of that tomorrow. I'm being told it is Hubby's time on the computer.

 

[karibritt01]

As you can probably imagine, none of us are feeling the magic at this point...

That really stinks! I think I would have made them move me to another resort, or give some serious upgrades. At least it was only for a couple of days.

CK- we didn't make it to MK until about 5 that day. We ended up back in MGM, as we didn't get Jedi Mickey's autograph, and the kids were really upset about missing it. Sorry we didn't get a chance to meet you!

 

[CourtneyandRyan]

CK- I see your boys take after Chris-- wearing socks w/ their crocs!!!!!

 

[CourtneyandRyan]

Joyce--- I would have been SO mad if they tried to do that room switch to me!!!! I'm glad they at least got yall a little closer!

 

[Crazy Kanga]

CK- I see your boys take after Chris-- wearing socks w/ their crocs!!!!!

They usually don't but they had blisters so they did it that one night.

 

[karibritt01]

Having been running from 7 AM until 2 AM the day before, we were exhausted. We slept in until about 11 AM this morning. We got up and were getting ready to head out, when we realized the kids autograph books were gone. I knew we had them leaving the room to go to MK the night before, but hadn't seen them since. We checked lost and found at the resort, as well as central lost and found, but no luck. The kids are devastated that all their Star Wars signatures are gone, as well as the ones from their breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, but I promised I would see what I could do to "fix" it. More on that later...

We arrived at Animal Kingdom around 12:30, and went straight to the Festival of the Lion King show. It was amazing! The kids sat there with their mouths hanging open through most of the show... especially the acrobats. Afterwards, we collected signatures from the Camp Minnie-Mickey trails. We had planned to go see the Nemo show next, for the last show of the day. We stood in line for approx 20 minutes when they announced the show was full, and turned us away... there were probably 200 people in line ahead of us, also. Guess we'll try that again on another trip! We next headed over to Dinoland, grabbed fast passes for Dinosaur, then went for lunch at Restaurantasaurus... we have definitely eaten better fast food! After we finished up our lunch, we hopped onto Dinosaur. Both kids enjoyed it, but Avery wanted me to cover her eyes at the scary part! She came off a little shaken, and said she was never riding that again! (Tune in when I get to Day 7) We were able to get in the Boneyard, Expedition Everest twice, the parade, and the trail around the Tree of Life during the afternoon. We had about 45 minutes to kill before our ADR at Rain Forest Cafe, so we planned to wander the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We had just gotten to that section of the park when it started thundering and lightening. We decided to skip the trail, and check in for dinner early. By the time we finished dinner, the rain had passed, the park was closed, and we all had our second wind... so we picked up our magic hour wristbands, and headed for Dinoland again. Wynn and Tucker did Dinosaur again while Avery went back to the boneyard. Then we went on Triceratop Spin, and Expedition Everest twice before calling it a night.

 

[CourtneyandRyan]

Good report Kari!!!! Hope you find the auto books!

 

[jjohnson]

Thank you everyone. Except for checkin, the rest of the week was fantastic. Did anyone else notice that the CM's at all the restaurants were being especially nice? Not that we've had bad service but it's always been just someone taking an order and another delivering it. This time they were all so friendly.

 

[karibritt01]

Apparently you didn't eat at Chef Mickey's...

Never did find the autograph books, just bought new ones and started over.

 

[jjohnson]

Apparently you didn't eat at Chef Mickey's...

Never did find the autograph books, just bought new ones and started over.

I took my two youngest for a late breakfast. We must have timed it right. We saw all the characters & ate within an hour. Goofy even helped me with a problem I was having with my camera. Since he couldn't talk, he kept making suggestions in DD's autograph book & fixed it I also got a kiss from Goody & Donald Sorry you didn't find yours. My oldest DS would be devastated as it has last years SWW autographs too.

 

[mandy200587]

OKay finally some peace and quiet and I'll be posting in our main thread with some news I got today. Today's journey is Kaki Gori and Soarin'

Okay we got up Monday morning, June 18th and had breakfast at the hotel not sure. Well we headed on to Epcot, we had a bit of a wait for the monorail at TTC. We got to Epcot and have to head through Innoventions to get to Soarin. Well of course I'm saying let's get there now while lines aren't bad. Well of course ya know we have to stop and let him play some games. I get a bit annoyed as I walked on thinking they were behind me, Nope they aren't.

Finally get them to follow me, we get to Soarin. Said it was a 40 minute wait, nope we had 15 minutes if that. We literally walked onto it. Well we finished that up and headed over and did Figment. Not the same as the original, still miss it. From there we headed to World Showcase. We walked through and went into Mexico. Nephew was being a brat, his mom had forgot his passport and he was mad about it and he didn't want to do the mask. We got him the passport and we ended up taking it to the countries along with the mask. We did the Mexico ride, not as fun anymore either.

We did the world showcase, no Norway cinnamon rolls or ride. We kept on going and had lunch in America, then I got my Kaki Gori in cherry. Yummy yummy. That's when things took the turn for the worse. We got to France and I got into a small fight with my nephew which he caused being a brat. Well it got the best of me and when I get mad you let me cool off and give me space. That's just how I am. Well we went from the World Showcase and went into MouseGears.

We shopped there for a bit before heading to Test Track and that was our longest wait, being an hour wait for that. That and people don't pay attention to the moving lines. Different story there folks. I wish they would bring back some of the old rules they use to have for the lines.

That night we went to Chef Mickey's, it was awful! We had a 6pm reservation. Got there early and food was bland. No refills on our drinks. Food was nasty in some areas. Never saw all the characters. We were there for over a hour. We won't be returning there for dinner.


Up Next: Hoop De Doo, MGM, and LTT.